


The Flowershop

by DoxBox



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 01:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18982039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoxBox/pseuds/DoxBox





	The Flowershop

> _"The Flower-Man is always a very strange person. Eccentric, or reclusive, or knowledgeable, or shy. There's always something about them. And it's what makes them so enthralling- they're a mystery."_

* * *

  


I always buy a flower on the way home from work. They're about a dollar each and kinda small, less roses and more centerpieces or the kind you'd put in your hair. I'm never consistent with one kind of flower, just whatever the woman at the store has to offer for that price.

The owner and I are polite to one another, we make small talk and share a few interests. They never asked why I did it though, and I assumed it would stay that way. But I came in like I always do, with my uniform and tag on, and opened the door as gently as I always did. I got to the counter and asked for what she had today- it was a lily that had almost died, you could tell by the drooping and fading colors.

I figured it would only be a matter of time before someone- maybe someone who keeps the place clean, or another regular, if flower shops have those, would ask me about it eventually. For some reason, I never had common sense enough to think the owner would- she seemed like the kind if person to just leave it alone in favor of pleasant conversation, jokes and things like that. So when she asked me about it, I was thrown off a little bit. I mean, there's not much in the direction I head after I leave, so I figured she's probably guessed where I take them.  
As I gave her the money and she handed me the flower, she raised an eyebrow and gave a curious smile.   
"So," she said. "Where you heading with such a lovely bouquet?"   
Caught me off guard a little.

"Oh, it's just a running joke between me an a friend."

"Do they buy you flowers too?"

"Sometimes, we don't get to spend time together like we used to. This helps me stay in touch with her."

"Hmm. Hey, I'm about to close- I was waiting for you to close, actually. Mind if I walk with you?"

I think she could tell I was a little hesitant to say 'yes'- this is a pretty personal thing- but I didn't want to be rude either. Besides, we ran into each other after work all the time.

"Sure, how far?"

"Just wanna meet whoever earned that. I saved it for you. You know; since you mentioned you like blue..."

and here she gestured to the flower. It had a white blossom with this blue trim on the outside, but there were some spots of blue showing up around the center, and the white bits started getting a brown hue. One of the ones with the five petals in a star shape.

"Oh yeah, thanks for this," I waved the flower in the air. "Means a lot. Her favorite color's blue, too."

She nodded, small smirk on her lips. "So I can go with you?" She already had her bag and jacket, so I don't know if she was asking or telling.

"Sure."

The walk wasn't out of the way for either of us, turns out. We chatted about weather and sports, a couple bad jokes and a lot of complaints about money problems. The moon was setting, the sun was rising to take its place- perks of working night shifts I guess. I pointed ahead and said I made a turn at this intersection, and she asked out of the blue if I knew what noise a curved horn would make.  
she said it sounds about right.

We laughed a bit and stopped in front of a big, stone sign- or maybe concrete? It had a bronze plaque with lots of letters on it, even some lights shining on the plated part so you could read it at night. "This is the place," I said, pushing open a small gate. Thing was maybe waist-high, meant to keep out animals more than people. A lot of stones stuck out of the ground, bunch of symbols and pictures on them. My friend stopped joking so much. There were all kinds of stones here- tall ones sticking out the ground like street signs, small ones laid flat like sidewalk concrete, curved ones that were shaped like popsicles. The one I was looking for had been carved out into something else, not one of these shapes. I walked up to it like I did every day, there was grass growing as a path so I could find it real easily.

It was a flower, a bronze metal rose with a pot and roots around the base. And where it sprouted out of that metal pot, it was decorated with these blue stones that were arranged at the base of the flower in a circle. They turn pink on valentine's day; I always buy a rose then.

I put the little star-shaped flower down against the base of the rose, right on the blue stones. Then I turned to my friend- "Here's the girl," I said to her. "Sorry for not warning you."

"No, I figured." She wasn't shaken at all, maybe you see worse when you work in a flower shop? "Not much out this way, you know? I get it. Why these flowers, though?" She pointed to the rose's stem, weathered and dull.

"We made a promise that whoever died first would get flowers. A hundred million billion flowers- I was a little kid then, and she loved flowers. She said to get her the wilted ones, new things were for other people. She was good with plants, so she would always take some tired, wilted flower and turned it into something beautiful."

"Like what?"

"Watch, you'll see."

The sunrise was orange and purple still, but higher in the sky now. Light started seeping in through the leaves of this tree above us, one of the beams hit the dying lily. The rose seemed to sparkle a little, I think it turned red.

"Hi mom," I whispered to the flower like I always did. "I brought you something."

The lily's stem started turning green as the light hit the blue rocks. It straightened out some, the petals started getting more defined colors. The blue looked like it was glowing.

"You did good, ma. Good job."  
The lily rolled so that the flower blossom was facing me. "I love you, ma."  
The flower petals turned pink, then went white-blue again.

The girl behind me went real pale. I picked up the lily and handed it to her. "Hey, wanna say hi?"

It took her a few seconds, and then she nodded. "H-hey, I'm the florist."

"She can talk using flowers," I explained. "See how the one petal spun when you said that? She's saying hi. Like waving, you know?"

"oh. can you do it too?"

"Yeah. I don't much, though."

"Is she really dead? This is a graveyard."

"Yeah, but not gone."

"What?"

"Oh, nobody's ever really gone."


End file.
